


Rebuild all your Ruins

by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)



Series: For the Good Times (Shiro Week 2017) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Via starvation), Gen, Gladiators, Shiro (Voltron)'s Missing Year, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Starvation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 06:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12788937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster
Summary: There are consequences to Shiro's refusal to kill.  Pain hasn't worked on him so far, but another tactic might.





	Rebuild all your Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion on a memory passingly referenced in Beast You've Made of Me. Reading that is not required at all: It's just a fun fact

Shiro startled awake when the door to his cell clanged open.

Blinking rapidly, he started to stand.  He barely got to his feet when something  _ clicked _ and then a point pressed between two of his ribs.  Shiro flinched, aware of what the sensation and the sound both meant, as an electric shock ran through him.  His muscles tensed and spasmed as he fell to the ground, limp and aching.

It wasn’t damaging.  Other than a bruise and pain, the effects would be gone within a few minutes.

That was plenty of time for his head to be yanked up by the hair, and for a muzzle to be slapped onto him.  Once that was in place, his wrists were grabbed and yanked behind him, then cuffed together at the small of his back.

Still shivering from pain, Shiro didn’t fight.  Fighting was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.  They’d always cuffed him to move him around, after his initial victory, but it wasn’t until he’d bitten a good chunk out of one of his captors that they’d started using the shocker and the muzzle.

Shiro just hoped that they’d give up using it if he stopped fighting.

Before he was able to comfortably move, he was yanked up by the end of his jumpsuit and dragged to his feet like an unruly kitten.  The fabric pulled tight around Shiro’s neck, cutting off his air and making him gag instinctively, but he stayed limp until his feet touched the ground.  They immediately buckled, but the grip held him up like a noose until he could keep himself upright.  Then he was shoved along, moved more by the guard’s grip than by his own volition.

Time for an arena fight.

Head spinning, Shiro tried to speak up.  He couldn’t be scheduled again.  He’d been here for… for however long since they were captured.  In all that time, they hey’d never tried to get him to fight twice in one day before.  The last fight hadn’t been that bad, but he’d still come away with a collection of bruises and cuts that went untreated.

Fighting without even a full night’s sleep between was going to kill him.  Yes, Shiro had slept, but it couldn’t have been as long as he needed.  He hadn’t had his meal yet, and he knew that was when it was a new ‘day’.

No sound escaped past his muzzle, and neither of the two guards seemed to care about Shiro’s head shaking.  He didn’t dare try to run, not while they had the shockers.  They’d just use them and make him fight anyway.  No need to hurt twice.

What had changed?  Shiro had won easier fights than earlier.  Why did they decide it wasn’t good enough this time?  And for that matter, how were there fights happening?  As far as Shiro had been able to tell, the battles were around the same time each cycle.  There was a sort of pattern to them.  Fight, sleep, eat, sleep more, sometimes eat again, sometimes sleep more, fight.  Repeat over and over and over until Shiro couldn’t keep track of how many opponents he’d bested.

But Shiro knew exactly how many he’d killed.

It was 12.  And he remembered the eyes of every single one.

Shoving him again, the guard barked out something, but the translators in this area of the ship didn’t work for Shiro.  Even without the word, he understood the message.  ‘Hurry up.’

Grinding his teeth behind the metal cover, unable to even open his jaw to gnash, Shiro fought to walk faster.  The pain was wearing off, and his muscles were mostly under his own control, but he still ached.

No more than usual, though.  And Shiro didn’t feel like he’d been woken early.

What was going on?

The hallway opened up to the familiar arches of the arena underbelly.  Shiro was shoved into the antechamber, where two more guards awaited him, these in fully defensive armor.  As the door shut firmly closed, one of the two reached around and held Shiro’s forearms together hard enough that he felt the bone grind.  The muzzle swallowed his cry completely, until he could only tell he’d made a noise by the vibrations in his jaw.  

Keeping his grip tight, the guard uncuffed Shiro, without giving him a chance to squirm away.  While he was held in place, the other reached around and undid his muzzle, then darted his hands away so he didn’t get bit.

Shiro really wasn’t going to do it again.  The punishment wasn’t worth the wound he’d managed.  But damn if it wasn’t satisfying to see them using some caution around him.  It was just about the only power he’d managed to get back over the past… weeks?  Months?

There was a rumble from behind the next door, too muffled for the translator to pick up the specifics.  But one three syllable word was cheered, familiar even from so far away, and the roar of the crowds was enough to make the walls rattle.

With that, a blade was shoved into Shiro’s hand, and a huge paw collided with the center of his back.  He stumbled forward, the door opening to let him through, and then slammed shut behind him.

It was like walking into a wall of sound.

Familiar by now with the procedure, and aware of the consequences if he failed, Shiro trudged forward.  The lights around him brightened, near blinding as they illuminated the familiar dirt field.  Around him, the crowd screamed and hissed and cheered and booed, clear in their intentions but alien in their design.  Caws and roars and hisses alike combined into pure noise, all baying for blood.  His or another’s, but blood all the same.

Across the way, another door opened.  The being that stepped out was an ashy, mottled gray, almost like they were made out of cement.  They stood tall, maybe a couple heads higher than Shiro himself.  They had four legs, spread apart like a dog or a horse’s limbs, then twisted up into something more like a centipede centaur. Four more arms lined the torso, long with jagged claws at the end.  The head swiveled around, with no visible mouth but two huge, pure black eyes.

Even from this distance, they looked confused.

The buzzer sounded and the lights flashed even brighter.

What had before been noise became a roar that shook the arena.

It was time to fight.

Immediately, the opponent turned around, facing the door and pounding on it with all four of their spindly hands.  When that failed to produce results, they turned around and reared nervously.

Shiro’s heart clenched in his chest, even as he started to step forward.  This wasn’t the first or the last opponent who was scared of him.  The Champion was a feared opponent.  You would lose when facing him, and even if you escaped with your life, you would be wounded. Never the same.  Cut in some way that it would take months to heal from.

For all Shiro tried to prevent kills, that only seemed to frighten some prisoners more.  Shiro wasn’t sure what he’d do if someone ever managed to hamstring him like he did to other - to lose the functionality of some part of his body, and to be at the mercy of the Galra.

It was better than killing.  He’d never be able to explain, because no one would listen.  Usually, they couldn’t understand his words, even if Shiro could have managed to pull together his thoughts.

Best to end this quick.

As Shiro set off at a jog toward the alien centaur, they reared again, then set off at a trot, running around the length of the arena.  Their speed was terrifying, very much akin to an Earth horse, and Shiro could suddenly understand why the beasts had been the most effective weapon of war for centuries on end.  They were big, they were powerful, and they were fast.

Still, Shiro had a weapon, and he’d faced down worse odds than this.

It had been three fights since he’d last killed, and that had been accidental rather than necessity.  Shiro wasn’t about to break his streak, paltry as it was.

Spinning in place, Shiro traced his blade in a circle around him, cutting a rivet through the dust.  The opponent started to spiral in closer, weaving around pillars as they looked for opportunity or escape.

Around them, the cheers started to become calls, unhappy shouts and murmurs rumbling through. 

Shiro needed to do something soon, or else the audience was going to get unhappy.  When they were bored, the being in charge would spice things up themselves.  Whatever they would cook up, from lava environments to extra opponents, was always worse than whatever they’d do to each other.

So Shiro waited for the centaur to duck behind one of the pillars, if only for a moment.  Then he bolted forward, ducking behind it and staying as close to the opposite side as possible.  He managed to do it fast enough that he heard their heavy paws stamp the ground, slowing in confusion as Shiro seemed to suddenly disappear.

Aware he only had a second’s pause to work with, Shiro looped around behind the centaur and kicked off the pillar.  This needed to be a show.  The alien’s spine was too curved to be a comfortable perch, they were close enough to a horse that Shiro could only think to get on their back.

But he’d underestimated the torso.  Twisting around lighting fast, the alien’s eyes widened, terrified as Shiro came from behind.  They lashed out with one arm just as he leaped, and managed to connect with his shoulder.  It wasn’t a powerful blow, but it was enough to knock him of course.  Shiro collided with their flank instead, then slumped to the floor before he could catch himself.  

As he impacted, the handle of his weapon slipped from Shiro’s finger, sending his blade clattering away.  It wasn’t far, the impact muffled by the loose dirt, so Shiro reached out and tried to grab it.

Then a shadow loomed over him.

Shiro didn’t think, just rolled to the side as fast as he could.  A huge, clawed paw slammed to the ground right where he’d been, every bit as dangerous and heavy as a hoof would have been.  He felt the impact on the ground like a shock wave as a cloud of dust flew up from the point of impact.

And his blade was on the other side of the paw.

As they picked up their foot for another strike. Shiro scrambled to his feet and darted away.  The centaur tried to rear up and kick him.  But they had to rebalance after trying to stamp him, and the reaction was too slow.  Instead Shiro was able to retreat, just enough to turn and take several breaths.

Then the alien charged him.

Shiro dove to the side, just barely avoiding being flattened.  He glanced over at his weapon, half-buried under loose dirt.  But by the time he turned toward it, the centaur was already coming his way again, each footsteps rapid and heavy like a charging bear.  

So instead Shiro did the first thing that came to mind.

He turned and ran the two steps to the pillar instead.  Then he planted his foot on the side and managed another step up before jumping off, just as the centaur came up beside him.

Shiro jumped off, twisting in midair as he did.  He could see the centaur’s head just beginning to turn left.  They were trying to track where Shiro had gone.

They came right underneath his jump.

Shiro twisted his hips and kicked out, until his left leg caught the flank of the centaur.  It wasn’t enough to do any kind of damage, but that wasn’t the point.  Instead, it stopped his momentum.  Bracing, Shiro reached out and grabbed onto the torso’s shoulders, fingers scraping at the gray flesh.

With a powerful, painful thud, Shiro landed on the centaur’s back, just like his initial plan.  Once there, he flattened himself to the torso’s back like he was spooning them.  He slipped his arms between both of their sets.

Then he hung on for dear life.

Immediately, the centaur went wild.  All four of their hands reached back, clawing and scraping at Shiro’s shoulders.  They were able to dig painful furrows and scratches into Shiro’s skin.  But the awkward angle never let them get a good grip.

They bucked and jumped, kicking back powerfully and shoving off the ground.  

Shiro had never ridden a horse before.  Not even one of those ridiculous mechanical bulls he’d seen one or two bars he’d been to.  But he had to imagine it felt like this.  The centaur never had all four paws on the ground.  Instead they twisted and jumped and bucked.  The force of them was incredible, bouncing Shiro so hard his hips came off and his legs splayed in the air.  Each time he came down, he was slammed down onto their bony back.  He was going to have a new collection of bruises and aches tomorrow.

But he held on.  If Shiro could just tire them out, he might be able to do something more substantial.

His fingers dug in desperately as Shiro tried to wrap his legs around where the torso became alien horse.  He needed find purchase on their smooth, hard skin.

Then, the centaur managed to grab at his face just as the force of impact jarred Shiro’s head away from their back.  Claws caught on the delicate skin, slashing diagonally from the corner of one eye and down his cheek.

It wasn’t a deep cut, but the feeling of his face being sliced was terrifying.  Shiro’s grip finally loosened, just slightly.

Feeling the give, the alien tried to slice his face again again.  This time their claws rested just above one of Shiro’s eyes.

Instinctively, Shiro let go of their torso and tried to pull away, just as they bucked up hard.

Shiro was thrown.  He went end over end, just barely missing colliding with the centaur’s torso in the process.  There was no way to prepare, nothing to twist off of to soften his landing.  Shiro hit hard, bouncing off the ground and rolling in a heap.  He missed landing on his own blade by barely a foot.

Ow.

Rolling onto his stomach, Shiro bit back a groan.  Something might have broken from that one.  It was hard to tell.  All he knew was that he hurt and he was on the ground.  

And there was a shadow over him. 

He needed to do something.  Anything.

Acting on desperate instinct, Shiro grabbed the bladed weapon and jammed it up.  At the same moment, the rearing centaur started to bring down a paw on him.

The blade handle was longer than the centaur’s leg.  Before it could hit him, the metal sliced through their chest and joint.  It sunk into the grey flesh.  Deep blue blood gushed out, splashing onto Shiro’s arms and shoulders.

There was still no noise from the creature - at least, none that Shiro could hear.  They went wide again, still reared.  They danced backwards on just their two back feet.  The bottom two arms reached down, trying to cup the wound and stop the blood flow.

Heart pounding, eyes wild, Shiro reached back with the weapon and brought it down with all his might on their back, left ankle.

He heard something  _ crack. _

The huge alien teetered, then fell to the side in a heap.  All four legs kicked out, but much weaker than before, and the move seemed to make them flinch.

Distantly, as if from miles away, Shiro remembered hearing something about putting down horses that had broken legs.  

Shiro stumbled to his feet, using the blade as a cane.  Just a few feet away, the centaur continued to scramble.  The bottom two arms still holding the chest wound, while the top two fearfully protected their face.  Once, then again, they tried to get their legs under them. But each time they crashed back down.  There was no mouth, no jaw that Shiro could see at all.

But their eyes were terrified, wild.  They kept looking back at Shiro, flinching in anticipation of the final blow.

The fight was over.

Looking up at the crowd, Shiro spun in a slow circle.  The cheers rose to a fever pitch, chanting the same words over and over.   _ Veprit Sa.  Veprit Sa. _

Shiro had no idea what they literally meant, but he knew what they wanted.

Finish it.

Shiro looked down at the alien one more time.  They were still twitching, but now all four of their arms were up, protecting their face.  Both huge, black eyes were screwed shut, and a jerk ran through their body.  Like a sob.

They were down.  There was no way for them to fight any time soon.

So Shiro threw the blade as far away from himself as he could.

“No,” he declared, not even yelling the word.  Just saying it.  A declaration.  He refused.

By now, the audience knew what Shiro’s actions meant. There was a loud chorus of boos and hisses, demands and shouts.  Finish it.  Kill them.  Give us our blood.

No.

Even when the doors opened and guards came out. Even when Shiro recognized the long, pointed devices in their hands, and felt the pointed jab between his ribs.  Even when the alien shivered and tried to squirm away from him, still terrified of The Champion.

No.

Shiro was smiling as they shocked him and put the muzzle on.

They could do anything they wanted to Shiro.

He would kill when he could avoid it.  He would not give them that part of his soul.

What could they do to him, really?  Let them beat him, let them lock him up.

Shiro would not break.

***

When Shiro woke up next, it was because his stomach was gurgling.  Groaning, he rolled onto his side and curled up tighter.  Not for the first time, he wished he had a blanket.  If nothing else, he’d be able to tuck himself in and get out the chill that felt permanently settled in his bones.

Hunger wasn’t new for Shiro.  He’d had to get used to the one meal a day schedule that the Galra set up.  The muck they provided was incredibly unappetizing, but it kept him healthy enough to fight.  That meant healthy enough to live another day, and maybe healthy enough to escape some day.  So Shiro choked it down. By now, he barely tasted it.  It had become normal.

Except today.

Clutching at his stomach as if to muffle the pain, Shiro tried to remember when they’d last fed him.  Keeping track of hours was impossible.  The lights never changed, always the same dim setting.  When he slept, it was impossible to tell how long it had been.  There was no clock or any way of keeping time in his cell.  Sometimes, he got two or even three meals between fights, like he wasn’t scheduled in the arena that day.

Except last time.

Shiro had assumed it had been two fights in the same day.  But what if it wasn’t?  Shiro kept track of days by meals.  If he’d skipped a meal, it would be easy to assume they just dragged him back out twice.

Which made this… two days without food, maybe?  If Shiro’s stomach was to be believed.

Well, one missed meal wasn’t that big a problem.  Shiro had skipped plenty of times in the past, usually because he was busy and distracted, or just because he didn’t feel like the effort of microwaving something.  But he’d never been living off so little calories already, so maybe he was just feeling it strongly.

He was fine.  Shiro would be fine.  He had to be coming up on the next day’s meal.  It wouldn’t be filling at this rate, but it would be something.

Shiro just had to wait.

***

For the next several hours, Shiro tried to ignore the gnawing ache in his stomach.  He rolled from side to side, and he spent hours staring up at the dark ceiling.  Without any approximation of a circadian rhythm, time dragged on.  

He tried to focus on anything else - home, the Garrison, previous fights, his fledgling attempts to learn the language of the Galra.  But the thoughts slid away quickly, either because he was distracted or tired.

Staying up was stupid.  Shiro needed sleep even more than he needed food.  It would kill him faster to be sleep deprived than to miss a meal.  He just couldn’t help it.  

Finally, the door clanged again, and Shiro sat up, expecting the guards to crack it open and push in a bowl.

Instead, it flew open wide, and two guards stepped in with a muzzle, cuffs, and a shocker.

What?

No.  _ No!   _ He wasn’t ready!

Yanking himself to his feet, Shiro shook his head.  “Wait, no, you haven’t fe-”

The shocker jammed into his ribs before Shiro could do more than flinch back, and he collapsed back to the ground, shaking.

Within seconds they had him back into the muzzle and the cuffs.  Then he was yanked to his feet and shoved forward, same as always.

Shiro tried to protest again, to remind them that he hadn’t eaten, but the muzzle swallowed all sound.  Any attempt to stop or catch one of their gazes only resulted in a blow, so Shiro trudged along.

As he was announced and his cuffs were released, Shiro took a deep breath.  “I can’t-”

He was shoved forward into the arena, greeted by the roar of the crowd.

Shiro turned and stared at the door, baffled.  Why were they doing this?  Was it a mistake that no one would listen to him about?  Or was it a punishment?  What had Shiro done wrong?

There was a burbling noise behind him.  Shiro glanced back, grip tightening on his blade instinctively.  He only barely caught sight of something orange-colored and gelatinous rolling toward him at full speed before he was slammed into the wall.

Right.  The fight.

Growling to himself, Shiro pushed off the wall and spun in place, meaning to scare it off.  Instead, the weapon sliced cleanly through the blob.  It fell apart and pooled on either side of him, then reformed into two, smaller mounds of goop, just as aggressive.

Really?   _ Really? _

Barely resisting the urge to scream, Shiro got to work.

***

Finally, only one shivering bucketful of the blob remained.  It shuddered at Shiro’s feet, vulnerable and helpless.

The battlefield was covered in more of it.  Blunt force had proven more effective against the jelly monster than the blade, since it just turned into two each time Shiro cut it.  But each time it separated, it also got smaller.  Eventually, Shiro had been able to kick and punch them to unmoving puddles.

Except for this little bit left.

Already, the crowd was hissing and booing.  They had to be aware what Shiro’s hesitation meant.  What they didn’t know was the way he was barely holding onto his weapon.  

At this least time, Shiro wasn’t seriously injured.  He’d gotten more than his share of bumps and bruises from when the globs had managed to ram him down.  Otherwise he’d come out of this fight in remarkably good shape.  It had just been a frustrating battle, not necessarily a deadly one.

But Shiro was tired.  He was still sore from the last fight, too, after being jerked around like a rag doll on the alien centaur.  Dealing with the inevitable shock for failing to kill wasn’t anything Shiro wanted to do.  It was terrifying, too, to be the subject of so many beings’ ire, even if the audience couldn’t reach him.

Even so, Shiro stepped back and dropped the weapon.  “Fight over.”

The doors opened, and the guards came out.

This time, a hand clamped over the back of his neck, and Shiro was yanked back to look at one of the guards.  Their yellow eyes pierced him, face twisted into a snarl, as if Shiro had personally insulted him.

“You will continue to pay for your disobedience, Champion.”

With that, the guard shoved their shocker in the center of his back, right over his spine.

Shiro cried out as his knees buckled.  He was only held up by the guard’s grip on him. Reaching up, he tried to hold up and regain his balance.

But the guard never gave him a chance to recover.  Instead, Shiro was quickly cuffed and muzzled, then shoved back out through the doorway.

The world seemed to spin in place from the rough, fast treatment.  Shiro’s mind floated, slightly away from the physical act of walking, from the aches and pains and cuts.

It gave him time to think.

‘Continue to pay.’

Continue.  As in, it had already started.

When they closed the door and started down the hallway, Shiro didn’t bother to protest anymore.

They were doing this on purpose.  The shocker wasn’t working, the threats weren’t working.  So now they were starving Shiro until he slaughtered other beings for their entertainment.

Shiro had long suspected his refusal to voluntarily kill would be the end of him.  He’d just thought someone would do it for him.  An opponent would get a lucky shot, or the Galra would kill him outright.  He’d accepted their beatings, but maybe one day they’d go too far and snap his neck.  That would be how he died.

It had always been a possibility.  Shiro was prepared for it.  They wouldn’t try to, because Shiro brought in too much money to lose for such a petty reason.  But accidents happened.

But this, he hadn’t considered.  For all of the Galra’s many cruelties, it just hadn’t occurred to Shiro that they’d do this.  No, they couldn’t kill him personally.  The backlash of losing the Champion would be too much.

On the other hand, if Shiro was tired and hungry and distracted, enough that some opponent got the best of him?

Well, guess he didn’t deserve to be Champion after all.

Curling up in a ball, Shiro took a deep breath and tried to ignore the deep, clawing ache in his stomach.

They were starving him.  But that didn’t mean Shiro had to give in.  He’d survived their beatings, so he’d survive this.

Shiro always did.

**

Three fights later, Shiro was beginning to fade.

He slumped against the wall of the cell, head spinning and gaze listless.  Shiro had read before that humans could go weeks without food.  Not comfortably, but they could manage, especially if they had water.  He never managed to swallow enough to make his stomach feel full, not with his limited supply, but at least he wasn’t dehydrating too. 

It didn’t feel like it helped.

Shiro wasn’t going to last long like this.  He’d already been low on nutrition, slimmed down till he was lean.  What little fat had been left on him was gone now, completely used up.

A week, thereabout.  It had been almost a week since Shiro had eaten.  

Just sitting here, Shiro could feel his heart pounding like a bird’s.  It was a thready patter, too fast and slight to be good for him.  His stomach gurgled and twisted, to the point that Shiro would have had trouble eating if someone had put a full meal in front of him.

Shiro was dying.

Shiro was dying slowly and painfully.

Blinking, he glanced down at his hands.  It was hard to tell in the dim, red lighting, but he swore he was paler than he’d been two weeks ago.  His skin seemed looser, like it had been replaced with a set that was one size too big.

Was it worth dying this way?

Was it worth sacrificing himself for Matt, worth beating all those opponents, worth clawing his way toward survival at every step, only for it to end here?

The alternative was to kill.  The alternative was to give in and break, let the Galra finally turn him into the fighting dog they’d been training him to be.

Did he want to give them the satisfaction?

Was withholding it worth dying for?

As he watched, Shiro’s hands began to tremor and shake, so he clenched them into tight fists.  His muscles ached from keeping them up, even just those few inches.  This was the worst shape Shiro had ever been in.  He felt old, like he should be laying in a hospital bed with liver-spotted hands and fingers that shook when he tried to turn the pages on a book.  Not in his early twenties, locked in an alien ship, and slowly wasting away.

Shiro’s body was eating itself.  He had no stored fat to speak of, so it was beginning on his muscles.

Shiro was dying, growing weaker every hour.

In his time with the Galra, Shiro had faced his mortality over and over.  He’d gone into fights he was sure he was going to lose.  He’d been knocked down, pinned, held at blade point, and each time he’d thought that was the end.

This was something completely different.

He didn’t want this.  He didn’t want this to be how he went out.  Not fighting, not in a split second decision, not in direct, confrontational defiance.

Just wasting away.  His body killing itself, picking apart his muscles bit by bit until there was nothing left to take.

Until there was nothing left of Shiro.

_ He didn't want to die like this. _

***

Shiro slept.

His dreams were feverish nonsense, flitting between images too fast to really register, much less make a narrative out of.  He dreamed of fights, of old aches and pains.  He dreamed of flying, of being chilly but awed in the cockpit as they passed through the solar system.  He dreamed of lights, of distant stars, of burning up in the wake of their light and heat.

He dreamed of the Garrison, of Keith, of classes, all in brief flashes.  He dreamed of his mother, wasting away in bed, her hands fragile but warm around his much smaller ones.   _ Be good, Takashi. _

He dreamed of lights above, movie-style abductions where he was strapped down and cut open, his organs pulled out and inspected.  He dreamed of the Galra taking him apart, piece by piece, and eating them in front of him.  

Sometimes, Shiro dreamed of food.  Past meals, Galra provided slop, his previous kills.  Eating all of it ravenously.

Those, Shiro woke from with a start, sweating and shaking, tears in his eyes.

It wasn’t that hard to fall asleep after.  The ache in his stomach was so constant it was easier to ignore, and he was so tired that he could barely stay awake anyway.  It was just giving in.

Just letting go.

Just doing what his body demanded.

Just breaking.

Just-

Shiro turned over on his other side, as if he could move away from his internal ramblings.  As if it would make the flighty, dazed feeling in his head go away.  As if it he could hide from his own thoughts and body.

It was too late, anyway.  Shiro was weak, now.  With his reaction times so delayed and his strength lost, there was no way to win.  His next opponent would kill him.

Eyes closed, Shiro let out a long sigh and curled up tighter on himself.

He slept fitfully, and dreamed of licking his fingers of a metallic-tasting red sauce.

***

Shiro didn’t blink as the muzzle was taken off.  The guards no longer seemed so wary of him anymore, probably because Shiro was so visibly, painfully weak.  He could barely keep his grip on his weapon, much less strike against armored, armed opponents.

Cheering.  Raised volume.  The shouts of the announcer.

Wha-

A hand connected with the middle of Shiro’s back, shoving him forward.  The world swam, and Shiro closed his eyes against the nose.  Shut up.  He wished they’d all  _ shut up. _  He hated their screams, hated their jeers, hated their enjoyment.  Hated each and every one of them with a passion that burned what remained inside of him.  Shiro didn’t want to kill for them.  He didn’t want any of this.

But he happily could have killed the beings who came to cheer on his torture.

The door opened on the far side, and a scrawny alien stepped out.  Their limbs were tiny, barely two inches thick, and they dragged their bladed weapon behind them like it was far too heavy for them to list.  At the sight of Shiro, they visibly started and fumbled the weapon.  The handle dropped to the ground, and they had to bend down to snag it back up.

This wasn’t Shiro’s usual kind of opponent.  Certain fighters made their bread and butter out of slaughtering new, pathetic catches.  Myzax had been one of them, and damn good at it, from what Shiro had hard.  But no one wanted the Champion to fight pathetic opponents.  It wasn’t any fun to watch him overcome someone he could defeat with ease.  

Shiro’s niche in the arena was that he was clever, solving puzzles made of other gladiator’s skills and brains.  It was a game with a thousand wrong choices, but Shiro only ever needed to find one right one.

This time, there were a thousand right choices.  Shiro thought he could kill this creature with a sneeze.

A gift.  A favor, even.

This was one last chance.  An easy opponent while he was so weak he was about to pass out.

Someone wanted Shiro to succeed.  Probably so he’d keep making them money, but even so.  This was a message.

You can live.  You have a chance.  Just kill this one.  It’s possible, we’ve made it so.  Just give in.

Something in Shiro’s chest cracked.

It had been such a good excuse, to say it was impossible.  Shiro had been sure he’d be dead by now.  Killing was a moot point when he couldn’t manage to land a blow.

Until now.

Stepping forward, Shiro gripped his weapon tightly.

The alien shook their head, clutching the handle of their own blade more like a teddy bear than a hilt.  “I- no.  I don’t want to do this.”

Neither did Shiro.  But he still stepped forward, mind whirling.

Each step drew a flinch from the alien, and Shiro felt his mood darkening with every jerk.  Couldn’t they at least make this good?  Couldn’t they have met Shiro’s meager expectations of competency?  Shiro didn’t want to be doing this.  He’d assumed he wouldn’t have to.  

Now here he was.

Once Shiro was in range, the skinny little alien cried out, a shrill, annoying voice.  They spun in place, finally getting the blade far enough off the ground to make a clumsy strike.

With one flick of his wrist, Shiro knocked it hard and sent it skittering away on the dirt.

“No!”  The alien clapped their hands over their mouth, then trembled.  “Why did you do that?”

What kind of question was  _ that? _

Despite himself, Shiro was fraying.  He was falling apart, thread by thread, ache by ache.  His temper lit him like a flame below a rope, burning through strands of self restraint without any effort on Shiro’s part.  

Pain ran through him, and his stomach felt like it was trying to claw its way out of his chest.

As Shiro’s lips pulled back in a snarl, a thought struck.

Hunger was making him a wild animal.  Hunger was making him lean, malleable.  Like a wolf trained through morsels of food, it was most effective when the creature was desperate.

In the end, hunger was just another leash. Just another way the Galra could control him, like the shocker or the muzzle. 

One of them was going to die after this fight.  It would be this alien, or it would be Shiro.  Once, he would have accepted that.  But Shiro didn’t want to die like this.

He didn’t want to die like this.

This time, Shiro was going to hit first.

Meeting the alien’s eyes, Shiro felt his heart crack down the middle.

_ I’m sorry. _

He struck.

The crowd went wild.

Dropping his dripping blade, Shiro stared up at the lights on the ceilings and closed his eyes.

He had finally been broken.


End file.
